[Bongle]

I thought it might have to do with FIRST encouraging more matches per team at each regional. GTR started early on Friday and Saturday, and ran pretty late (4:45 on Friday, 12:30 on Saturday). If they'd had to deal with more teams, they would have had to start even earlier and end later if they wanted the same # of matches.

I do miss the double-field action though; it made it seem like a Really Big Event. The 12-alliance finals were neat too. Maybe with the millions from the provincial government GTR can get back to its double-fielded glory in the future.

As for the border, my friends and I have had very little trouble crossing it in both directions, even with expensive/weird things like LeMons race cars and spare engines. Both years, the border guard seemed far more interested in LeMons ("For $500 cars? That sounds fun! Good luck!") than in border-guardey stuff.